Opposites Attract: The Art and Science of Data Visualisation

Andy Kirk

@visualisingdata

Visualising Data Ltd.

Opposites attract

The enduring discussion about form and function

Opposites repel?

com·mu·ni·ca·tion noun

The act or an instance of communicating; the imparting or exchange of information, ideas,

or feelings

Formal, instructive, pragmatic

Creative, natural, emotive

Analytical/Pragmatic

Abstract/Emotive

Exp

lora

tory Exp

lanatory

Analytical/Pragmatic

Abstract/Emotive

Judging tone

The trade off between accuracy and aesthetics:

Read data vs Feel data Pragmatism vs Emotion

Science vs Art

Emphasis on reading data…

Getting visualisation right is much more a science than an art,

which we can only achieve by studying human perception.

Stephen Few

http://www.interaction-design.org/encyclopedia/data_visualization_for_human_perception.html

A visualization is more effective than another visualization if

the information conveyed by one visualization is more readily

perceived than the information in the other visualization.

Jock Mackinlay

http://hci.stanford.edu/courses/cs448b/f10/lectures/CS448B-20100923-DataAndImageModels.pdf

http://www.perceptualedge.com/articles/visual_business_intelligence/the_chartjunk_debate.pdf

The Chart Junk Debate | Stephen Few

http://www.visualisingdata.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/GenderAnalysis.png

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/03/01/business/20090301_WageGap.html

Wage Gap | New York Times

Visual Cortex

Seeing

Cerebral Cortex

Thinking

Visual perception

Images from http://psychology.about.com/od/sensationandperception/ss/gestaltlaws.htm

Theoretical ancestry

Jacques Bertin, ‘Semiologie Graphique’, 1967

Cleveland & McGill, ‘Graphical Perception: Theory, experimentation and application to the development of graphical methods’”, 1984

Theoretical ancestry

B = 9

A = 10

Length

Area A = 10 B = 9

Interpretive accuracy

http://blog.revolutionanalytics.com/2012/12/create-optical-illusions-with-r.html

Colour perception

http://blog.visual.ly/2ds-company-3ds-a-crowd/

Visual distortions

Emphasis on feeling data…

I'm just seeing what I basically know... But I felt it in a way I never had before. You can feel a good

data visualization.

Amanda Cox

http://blogs.hbr.org/hbr/hbreditors/2013/03/power_of_visualizations_aha_moment.html

Mapping America: Every City, Every Block | New York Times

http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/explorer

I have this fear that we aren’t feeling enough.

Chris Jordan, TED Talk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f09lQ8Q1iKE&feature=youtu.be&t=5m11s

Running the Numbers II: Portraits of Global Mass Culture | Chris Jordan

http://www.chrisjordan.com/gallery/rtn2/#gyre2

43#

1#

Number#of#white#American#presidents# Number#of#non8white#American#presidents#

Encapsulate the feeling of a subject?

http://guns.periscopic.com/?year=2010

US Gun Murders | Periscopic

Encapsulate the feeling of a subject?

http://graphics-info.blogspot.hk/2012/09/malofiej-20-look-at-our-participation.html

Iraq’s Bloody Toll | Simon Scarr

Encapsulate the feeling of a subject?

http://www.grahaphics.com/All-The-Medalists

Storytelling One Race, Every Medalist, Ever | New York Times

http://moritz.stefaner.eu/projects/musli-ingredient-network/

“I chose the chord diagram over the possibly more revealing matrix design because the matrix doesn't look

‘tasty’ and muesli shouldn't look like ‘fungi’”

Design sensibility Muesli Ingredients Network | Moritz Stefaner

http://hint.fm/wind/

Wind Map | Hint FM

Design sensibility

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-s5PzYfPlDoc/T8kmZ1-gPPI/AAAAAAAAAYc/7kFmM94bPMU/s1600/literaryOrganism2.jpg

Literary Organism | Stefanie Posavec

Conceptual skills

http://infosthetics.com/archives/2012/03/nasa_perpetual_ocean_the_ocean_surface_currents_around_the_world.html

Perpetual Ocean | NASA

Technical flair

http://lasombra.blogs.com/la_sombra_del_asno/2013/03/kwc.html

Execution skills City of Anarchy | Adolfo Arranz

La Ballena Franca | Jaime Serra

Art direction

http://www.malofiej21.com/la-ballena-franca-grafico-mas-influente-de-los-ultimos-veinte-anos/

http://oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/united-kingdom/

OECD Better Life Index | Moritz Stefaner & Raureif

UX design

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/11/02/us/politics/paths-to-the-white-house.html

512 Paths to the White House | New York Times

UX design

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tkDK2mZlOo

Inconvenient Truth | Al Gore

Drama

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2012/nov/05/you-decide-the-presidential-election-interactive

You Decide the Presidential Elections | Guardian US

Fun

http://emoto2012.org | http://ciid.dk/education/portfolio/idp12/courses/data-visualisation/projects/tasty-tweets/

Emoto | Moritz Stefaner, Studio NAND, Drew Hemment

Experimentation

Tasty Tweets | Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design

Smells of Auld Reekie | Kate McLean

http://www.sensorymaps.com/maps_cities/edi_smell.html

Beyond just the visual…

It depends

What is good? What is bad?

What is right? What is wrong?

Who is right? Who is wrong?

Why?!

Everyone is right. Sometimes.

In certain contexts.

Who is your audience?

http://probaperception.blogspot.fr/2012/10/the-best-strategy-to-play-guess-who.html

http://youtu.be/hVimVzgtD6w?t=1m1s

Setting?

Functional needs?

http://kennedyelliott.com/visualize-this.png

Need for immediacy? Where the Public Gets its News | Kennedy Elliott

Scope for learnability?

http://infobawards.s3.amazonaws.com/SPOTLIGHT-ON-PROFITABILITY_Krisztina-Szucs.png

Spotlight on Movie Profitability | Krisztina Szucs

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/03/27/harold-bloom-genius-visualization/

Scope for learnability? History’s 100 Geniuses of Language and Literature | Accurat

Format? Technical capabilities?

The real craft behind data visualisation design is how we

rationalise choices within a context

“It depends...”

Be confident that you can justify the inclusion, exclusion and deployment of every design

property

Justified design

http://www.itsbeenreal.co.uk/index.php?/wwwords/literary-organism/

Literary Organism | Stefanie Posavec

Justified design

http://hellogiggles.com/everything-i-need-to-know-i-learned-from-jurassic-park

Justified design

Spanner in the works

There are better and worse, but rarely perfect solutions

“You can lead a horse to water…”

http://www.redbubble.com/people/rebelpony/works/1073982-you-can-lead-a-horse-to-water

Moods Tastes

Personalities Contexts Pressures

Inconsistencies

Blind-spots Confidence

Temperament Prejudices

Irrationalities Fears

People are not rational

http://visual.ly/?view=explore

http://readwrite.com/2013/02/05/brand-marketers-totally-miss-social-media-influencers

“Data visual-what-did-you-call-it?”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/naomirobbins/2013/02/04/misleading-newspaper-graph/

https://twitter.com/Mapitup/status/266420231902216192

http://skepchick.org/wp-content/uploads/venezuela.png

3 closing thoughts

We’ve still got a long way to go. Let’s enjoy the ride together.

Pragmatic 80 Creative 20

When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty.

I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished,

if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.

Richard Buckminster Fuller

http://www.quotes.net/quote/7377

www.visualisingdata.com andy@visualisingdata.com

@visualisingdata